Who Killed Sherlock Holmes?

Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? (2016) Paul Cornell (Shadow Police)

The third–and seemingly final–book of the Shadow Police series.

The story opens with a bank robbery.

‘I won’t tell you!’ she shouted.

‘I can!’ Kevin insisted, pointing at himself.

The stormtrooper paused awkwardly again. He obviously had as little idea as she did what Kevin’s weird willingness to help was about. Lacey looked over her shoulder into those blank eye sockets, willing whoever was under there just to follow his orders.

Kevin looked perplexed. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘do you want to rob this bank or not?’

Finally a good outcome for Quill’s group. Which they desperately need, because Lisa Ross lost all her happiness, Costain betrayed Lisa, and Quill is not only unable to recover from his time in hell, but is getting worse.

His body’s continual fear that something would leap out at him was making him physically tired, what felt like a literal weight around his shoulders, arms and chest. It was wearing him out.

One of the hardest parts of this story for me, is watching Quill’s descent into madness. Yeah, what happened to him in the previous book was awful, but this slow spiral is just devastating to read.

All three–Costain, Quill, and Ross–are a disaster at the start of the story, but in some small sense, Constain and Quill’s harms came as a direct result of their own actions, while Quill truly had done nothing to deserve any of what happened to him.

The three other members of his team were standing apart from one another, looking off in different directions, like they were an indie band posing for an album cover.

We also get to learn Lofthouse’s story, and how the five were assembled into a group, and that fills in a lot of blanks from the previous stories.

But there were so many more stories that could have come from here, and I miss those stories I don’t have.

Publisher: Pan
Rating: 8.5/10

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